


Blood, Snow, Raven Wings

by Ms_Minty



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 13:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5929579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Minty/pseuds/Ms_Minty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yona and her dragons battle soldiers in the snow. Son Hak and Yona contemplate death, and choose life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood, Snow, Raven Wings

Her slim figure stood erect in the middle of the snowy battlefield, surrounded by the chaos and carnage unleashed by her dragons. Jae-Ha’s foot crashed into an advancing soldier, then he launched himself out of her range of vision once again. Yona’s lips were pressed into a grim line as she loosed arrow after arrow into a thigh, a shoulder, an eye. A heart. The bodies of their fallen enemies were dark heaps in the snow. But they kept coming.

The sunrise blaze of her hair was streaked with a darker red, blood from an earlier encounter that left her breathless and shaking. The soldier was suddenly upon her, leering, knocking her into the snow with the back of his hand. He stood above her, all toothy menace and a sharp blade. Then a bloody mist sprayed out of his mouth, and she felt it on her cheeks. Hak’s blade erupted from the other side of his chest, gleamed, then disappeared again, and he kicked the soldier to the ground.

She shook herself free of the vision. She had to support her loyal, ferocious dragons and her white knuckles drew back again and again as she mechanically fired. The sun was setting and they were being pushed back into a forest. In the twilight it was difficult to distinguish the soldiers from the ragged silhouettes of the tree trunks. Yona reached behind her head and was startled to find that she only had two arrows left. Two arrows and a knife tucked into her waistband. The black trees, the red blood fading into black shadows and the white snow were the only colors in the world.

A white-gray shadow dropped next to her, coat blending in with the snow drifts. “Kija…” He put his fingers to her lips. The forest was silent. Suddenly, a flock of ravens flew overhead, so close she could hear the beating of their wings and guttural cries, but she could not see them in the low branches of the trees. It was dusk.

Kija exhaled, then gave Yona a small, tired smile. “Are you okay?” She nodded, but looked away.

***

The snow soaked into her boots, leaving her feet icy cold. She braced one of her boots against the crude leather vest of a dead soldier and pulled, pulled again, then kicked him. Her arrow wouldn’t budge. Yona had retrieved fourteen of them, fewer than half she had fired in the battle. It was difficult to find them in the growing dark, and it had begun to snow again, covering all of the corpses with glittering blankets.

Yona wasn’t sure when she’d have a chance to get more arrows, so she continued to tug. The body lurched beneath her feet, made animate by her tugging. A sob left her throat. She gritted her teeth and removed the knife from her belt, intending to cut the arrow free, and trying not to think of what her father would say to see her, blood-soaked and ragged in a forest.

A hand touched her elbow, startling her.

“Let me.” Son Hak’s lanky frame towered above her. She lowered her hand and stepped aside. As Hak leaned over to retrieve the arrow, the small amulet she had given him fell out of his shirt and gleamed in the moonlight.

Yona ran her fingers through her hair and winced when the hand came back dark with blood. Hak looked up at the noise and she quickly hid her hand behind her back. He cocked an eyebrow at her but said nothing. The arrow came free with a wet tearing sound. Hak wiped it in the snow and offered it to her. Even now, exhausted from battle, feeling a twinge in her hairline, her heart fluttered when she met his eyes.

***

When Hak came across the soldier leaning over Yona, there were no thoughts, just instant action—he gutted the bastard. He found himself smiling as his blade pierced the soldier’s chest, and hoped that Yona did not see. They had tracked the soldiers from a burning village littered with dead children and engaged them in the open ground next to a forest. Hak had no qualms about the battle; he welcomed the chance to bathe in blood. He was made for this, he was born for this. He was, after all, a beast.

But he was a beast with a leash. Yona’s presence in the battle disturbed his single-mindedness, his zen of death-bringing. He ranged around her, careful to keep her in sight, but always moving. She was the center of his vortex.

He had only forgotten her once, when confronting Soo Won. The beast had finally taken him, in front of her. Soo Won had to die. Hak shook himself, refocused.

When they’d fallen back to the forest it was harder to keep track of her, and he took to the low branches of the trees to drop on his enemies. She had done well in the battle, and so he ventured farther, catching stragglers from the darkening woods. Farther away where she would not see his smile when he gored his next kill.

***

Yoon glared at Yona over a pot of snow he was boiling into water. “When did you think you would mention this?” Yona closed her eyes and sighed. Her defrosting toes next to the fire hurt more than her head. Yoon soaked the bandage in the newly boiled water and raised it out of the pot with chopsticks, steam billowing into the moonlit sky. He cleaned her wound and wrapped it while she grumbled at the attention. Hak was uncharacteristically quiet, looking into the fire. She wanted to goad him into making a snide comment about her, her fighting style, anything. Flames smoldered in his eyes until she finally looked away.

The Dragons had come out relatively unscathed—Shin Ah had a deep graze in his shoulder. Zeno was already whole. Yona knew that the fight had been necessary, that these rogue groups of soldiers needed to be stopped before they put another village to blade and torch. She also knew that it had been necessary that she helped, instead of sending her dragons out like a spoiled princess. She flexed her toes, finally feeling all of them again. Blood still spattered her clothes. There would be no baths or laundry, until they found a hot spring or a town. She scrubbed at a few of the bigger stains with handfuls of snow.

Hak lurched up from his sitting position, and moved away from the fire into the forest. Yona hesitated, feeling the Dragons’ eyes on her, then hurried to follow him.

***

He gathered what dry wood he could find, some from a culvert protected from the snow, some from the lower dead branches of a tree. They came off with a crack in his hand. Yona was cold, she was hurt, and all he had cared about was battle. He broke another branch off and tucked it under his arm.

_I will always be a beast._

This was going to end someday, probably with Yona on a throne. Or dead, part of him whispered, but he brushed the thought away. She had so many protectors now that she was certain to succeed. He was a beast and she would be queen.

He stopped in a small clearing and raised his free hand to the small stone hanging from his throat. But there was something there, something between them, something that he didn’t quite understand yet. He couldn’t dare to hope. He was a beast. He heard a small noise and closed his eyes, knowing who it was before turning around.

“Hak?”

He turned then, Yona was standing behind him in the clearing. Her hands reaching toward him. She faltered, then raised them again. Hands that had rained arrows of death down on soldiers a scant hour before. She raised to stand on her tip-toes, then touched his cheeks. Her hands were cold. He exhaled and dropped his bundle of wood. He placed his hands over hers, and leaned into her, drawing strength, drawing humanity from the little flame-haired girl. Woman.

Something changed in her eyes. Her hands reached from his cheeks into his hair, and she urged his lips down to hers. Their lips met, and his focus collapsed to this single point in time, in a small wooded clearing in the snow. A small keening noise left her throat and he deepened the kiss, hands moving to her waist, lifting her into his chest. Her small breasts pressed against him and she shivered, bringing Hak back into the world.

“Yona, you’re cold.” She shook her head, but could not stop trembling. She was not cold, she was suddenly burning hot, but could not control her shaking shoulders. Hak gently lowered her back to her feet, and cupped her chin with one hand.

“You know…” he started, then stopped. He gritted his teeth in frustration at finding the words. “Always. You know that right? Now and always.”

She gave him a tremulous smile, and he actually thought she might understand. That there might be a future for them, that he might stand by her side.

Yes, he was a beast, but he was _her_ beast. And he would serve. Always.

**Author's Note:**

> Short bit that happens some time after 110, but doesn't really make sense in the timeline, so sorta AU? Inspired by low-flying ravens. I really was trying to write smut, but this particular OTP has resisted so far!


End file.
